Australia’s largest paper merchant revealed the goodwill write-down in a set of dismal full-year results, which were hampered by $103m of one-off items, including restructuring costs and a loss from its exit of manufacturing, having closed the Burnie Mill in Tasmania last August.

The goodwill charges comprised the bulk of the impairments. It wrote down $35.1m in Australia and £20m in Europe due to “decreased volumes and difficult trading conditions”.

Paper volumes fell sharply, down nearly 10% year-on-year to 2.63 million tonnes, “reflecting significant drop in demand in our key markets, especially in the second half”.

However, the company said it had now cut its cloth and expected to bank positive impacts of the restructuring in the coming year.

Paperlinx chief executive Toby Marchant said: “These results represent a transition year for the company.

“While the loss is very disappointing, non-recurring costs and charges for impairment, restructuring, the currency option and discontinued operations make up the vast majority of this loss.

“This demonstrates we are dealing with our legacy issues in order to create a platform for future profitability,” said Marchant (pictured).

Paperlinx’s operational results were down slightly. Its full-year revenue of $4.67bn was a 10.7% fall that the company largely attributed to the strong Australian dollar.

The company’s gross profit percent was 19.8%, a slight drop year-on-year from 19.9%.

It caps a tumultuous year for Paperlinx, which responded to the catastrophic 2009/10 results with two rounds of restructuring as well as cutting both its chief executive, Tom Park, and its Australian general manager, Larry Jackson.

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